Reintroduction

A couple years ago, I awarded some books I read "Heart of Gold Prizes."

• Pickett's World Again
• Icelandic Mystery
• BWCA Adventure
• Craig who?
• Flashbacks as Bad as the Present

The name for the prize came from Douglas Adams' space ship in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. [It had a black control panel (like my now obsolete audio amplifier). Black controls mean that no one can really tell what the controls control. But given the way the space ship worked, no one needed to use the control panel anyway.]

Heart of Gold

The reason I choose that space ship for the prizes was becasause of the power source used by the Heart of Gold. Kevin Kelly in his io9 blog, described the propulsion system this way, "The Heart of Gold ran on an infinite improbability drive that took it through 'every point in the universe at once' when it was switched on. Not too shabby. All it took was an electronic brain and a good Brownian motion generator, like a cup of tea, and you're off. Probably the cheapest form of travel ever invented."

I bring this up because of some of my recent reading. I'm ready to award some more HoG Prizes. Improbabilities drive me up a wall. Especially blatant ones. These are not awards of honor. A couple prize winners follow.